S. O. MacDonald, J. A. Cook.2009.Recent Mammals of Alaska. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks, Alaska, 387 pp. ISBN 978-1-60223-047-7, price (hardbound: alkaline paper), $55.00. Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas and has more than 10,000 km of coastline (the distance from Laramie, Wyoming, to Buenos Aires, Argentina). It is not only a vast land but also a difficult one in which to work during much of the year. Notable mammalogists, from C. Hart Merriam and Joseph Grinnell—the founders of mammalogy—to the authors and their students (many of whom are pictured in this book), have worked diligently to clarify the fauna of this northernmost state, a last redoubt for much of the American megafauna. The book begins with a nice overview of the history of Alaska's mammal collectors and scientific expeditions. These were heroic efforts in the early days of exploration. On an early expedition Major Robert Kennicott died of heart failure while exploring the Yukon in 1866 (the Kennicott Glacier, Kennicott Valley, and Kennicott River are named in his honor). Kennicott was replaced by William Healey Dall (who first observed white sheep on Mt. McKinley, a species that would subsequently be named the Dall Sheep, Ovis dalli , when it was formally described by Nelson in 1884). Dall (who was a student of the Harvard anatomist and mammalogist, Jeffries Wyman, the father of forensic anthropology) had been exploring Siberia when he learned of Kennicott's death, and he left his Siberian expedition and moved to the Yukon River to continue the exploration of that area. The U.S. Biological Survey played a major role in sampling Alaska's mammal fauna, from E. W. Nelson (when he was a private in the Army) to Frederick True, C. Hart Merriam, A. K. Fisher, W. H. Osgood, N. Hollister, and O. Murie (the book is dedicated to Olaus and Margaret Murie). Also making appearances as field collectors are V. H. Cahalane, A. Murie (brother of Olaus and …